ARCO13 Tom Paddock by Plymouth University School of Architecture

PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE: TOWARDS A HOLISTIC APPROACH Tom Paddock

ARCO13

Have you had your daily compliance?: by author

PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE: TOWARDS A HOLISTIC APPROACH Tom Paddock Abstract This essay interrogates the western obsession with development through the analogous concept of western medicine. In response to the peripheral subaltern, there is an addiction to prescriptive solutions, particularly that of a standardised, universal solution and the instilling of a ‘standard of living’ hierarchy – with the western hegemonic power structure being the social norm and the ‘less developed’ countries succumbing to the highly contagious disease of ‘underdevelopment’. This medical dialogue also approaches surgical responses to development, with particular focus on slum development and regeneration. Transcending these approaches emerges the holistic architect, most notably the urban acupuncturist, whose value for the immune system that is people encourages social empowerment and a healthy urban organism. The medicinal approach to architecture had provoked many intriguing conversations, especially when considering ‘third world’ nations and western interventions. Notions such as addiction to prescriptions; a reliance on donors; gastric bypass and radical neurosurgery can all be related to Architectural approaches in the current discourse. However the holistic approach cultivates the urban acupuncturist, whose intentions are to ameliorate dependency on expatriate help, which is undoubtedly an integral requirement if we are to allow the subaltern to exist as ‘coeval others’.

Introduction “Our own body is in the world as the heart is in the organism: it keeps the visible spectacle constantly alive, it breathes life into it and sustains it inwardly, and with it it forms a system”1 Using western medicine as an analogy for the current euro-centric approach to ‘third world’2 development, one can challenge how the current discourse champions a ‘top-down’ approach to architecture through exploring holistic alternatives such as participatory planning. I will use the analogy of western medicine as a vehicle to drive my research, in search of a way of creating space that enables the peripheral subaltern to achieve their own trajectories, as opposed to aspiring to adhere to a western model. This questions the benefits of a ‘prescriptive architecture’, proposing instead the introduction of the ‘Urban Acupuncturist’, encouraging an architecture of emergence, in which the people ultimately become their own solution and thus recognising the subaltern as coeval others as opposed to existing “…at an earlier stage in the one and only narrative it is possible to tell”3. Throughout my dissertation research the concept of medicinal architecture has been extremely insightful. Talcott Parsons first coined the term ‘sick role’ when considering the social implications of catching an illness or disease. He proposed that when the ‘sick role’4 is applied to a person, they enter a state of ‘sanctioned deviance’5 and as such must be exempt from the normal conditions of society. Almost immediately one can relate this to how the western model of architectural practise approaches those in ‘developing’ nations, often branding them as in need of help and assuming that they do not have the capacity to help themselves. While the initial aid is beneficial to livelihoods in need, this approach eventually alienates the subaltern and denies them existence as our ‘coeval others’. When applying this concept to how we approach developing countries in relation to architecture, often planners and developers resort to prescriptive responses, or even surgical measures.

1 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, (Routledge, London, 1992), p. 203. 2 nb. I use the widely recognised term ‘third world’ not in a derogative sense, rather as a term to describe people on the periphery of the western hegemonic power structure. 3 Massey, Doreen, For Space, (London: SAGE Publications, 2005), p. 5. 4 Parsons, Talcott, ‘The Sick Role and the Role of the Physician Reconsidered’, The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly: Health and Society, 53 (1975) 257. 5 Parsons, ‘The Sick Role…’, p. 257. PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE: Tom Paddock

The Architectural Pharmacist: A Prescription of Compliance “What else could it be for me but an amputation, an excision, a haemorrhage that spattered my whole body with [subaltern] blood?”6 The metaphor of illness and prescribing solutions is rooted deeper in architecture than would first appear. The obsession to diagnose problems in society and prescribe solutions is reinforced in that even the qualifications to become an Architect are “…prescribed by the Board” 7 and as such it should come as no surprise that the architectural-medicinal analogy can be applied with ease. As globalisation and westernisation have developed in the world, the response to ‘third world nations’ has been that of attempting to diagnose the symptoms of difference and the prescription of a solution. Almost immediately, it is apparent that this view is flawed in that this immediately adopts a western perspective of the ‘Other’, “… stigmatising local communities as having a ‘problem’, as opposed to seeing communities endowed with many positive assets”8. This western-biased opinion negatively brands those that are peripheral to the western hegemonic power structure and “…gives the uninformed public a distorted impression of how the world’s poverished are living their deprivations…”9. This gross misrepresentation disregards specificity, creating an Architecture with a severe lack of empathy, and embeds the subaltern in “…a great embracing machine, sustaining the central authority yet commanded by it”10. Rejection of specificity leads to the denial of an alternative identity. It is becoming apparent that globalisation is slowly homogenising the world to a western ideal, contorting cultures of the ‘other’ to the extent that even language and heritage is gradually being erased. ‘A– ‘s a giggle now but on it Osiris, Ra. An ч an er… a cough, once spoking your valleys with light. But the A’s here to stay. On it St. Pancras station, the Indian and African railways. That’s why you learn it today … ‘Get back to your language,’ they say. ‘11 6 Fanon, Frantz, Black Skin, White Masks, (London: Pluto Press, 2008), p. 112. 7 Architects Registration Board, http://www.arb.org.uk/publications/guidance/prescription_process.php [accessed 20/12/12]. 8 Hickey, Samuel, and Mohan, Giles, ed., Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation?, (London: Zed Books, 2004), p. 220. 9 Rahnema, Majid, ‘Poverty’, in The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power, ed. by Wolfgang Sachs (London: Zed Books, 1991), pp. 158-176. 10 Said, Edward, Orientalism, (London: Vintage, 1979), p. 44. 11 Jussawalla, Adil, Missing Person, (California: Clearing House, 1976). 5

This view encourages a ‘prescriptive’ architectural approach, championing a ‘top-down’ approach to development, which one can liken to that of western medicine – attempting to eradicate the solution with a generic solution that is“…derived from standards suitable for everyone in general but no-one in particular”12. I propose that this generic approach to architectural development denies the subaltern an identity, or the ability to define themselves, and is instead “…identified by the west” 13. The issue of development as a ‘prescribed solution’ is compounded further by the fact that “…the westernisation of the world has by no means created a universal equalisation of living standards. Instead, it has imposed the concept of the standard of living as the dominant category for perceiving social reality (and therefore underdevelopment), and made the increase of living standards a moral obligation for the leaders of emerging nations”14. By measuring the living standards of peripheral cultures against the euro-centric ‘norm’, we are ignoring the heterogeneous aspects that make communities unique, and instead aim to homogenise the world, often resulting in the “…ignorance or misunderstanding or disdain of culture and habit”15. This gives birth to a warped architectural discourse that intends to pressure those on the peripheries to ‘catch up’ to those of us in more developed countries, often “…borrow[ing] from some social housing guidebook in Europe and adapted, grudgingly, to fit”16. The imposition of a generic Eurocentric solution brings with it a generic way of living, divorcing the inhabitants from their culture and instilling not only functional discomfort, but spiritual vulnerability. Gradually the perceived impoverished of the world will lose value in their ability to survive and adapt, and will instead “… dutifully play out their roles assigned to them…”17 by their ‘western superiors’. This championing of “…European superiority over [subaltern] backwardness”, results in the relationship between the western world and its peripheries as that of “…power, of domination, of varying degrees of complex hegemony.”18, thus architectural responses in these cultures are based on “…changes which are both possible and meaningful in their own lives. It matters little to them whether what they do is applicable elsewhere, or in conformity with ideal models of society constructed elsewhere…”19.

12 Hamdi, Nabeel, The Placemaker’s Guide to Building Community, (London: Earthscan, 2010), p. 25. 13 Said, Edward, Orientalism, (London: Vintage, 1979), p. 40. 14 Latouche, Serge, ‘Standard of Living’, in The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power, ed by Wolfgang Sachs (London: Zed Books, 1991), p. 257. 15 Hamdi, Nabeel, The Placemaker’s Guide to Building Community, (London: Earthscan, 2010), p. 25. 16 Hamdi, The Placemaker’s Guide…, p. 25. 17 Hamdi, The Placemaker’s Guide…, p. 25. 18 Said, Edward, Orientalism, (London: Vintage, 1979), p. 5. 19 Sachs, Wolfgang, The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power, (London: Zed Books,1991). PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE: Tom Paddock

The prescriptive model of development, specifically that of ‘prescriptive architecture’, stresses the fact that “…at the root of paternalism of the international agencies dealing with the third world lies a terrifying ethnocentrism…”20. The value that western society has placed on development has created the connotation of an obsession with “…escap[ing] from the undignified condition called underdevelopment”21. To state that an area is underdeveloped is a malignant diagnosis of sickness, for which the perceived remedy/treatment is prescription of the western standard of living. But to issue western livelihood in such a prescriptive, pill-like fashion denies the body of the community to adapt and grow. Whereas the immediate benefits are apparent in alleviating the symptoms of social disorder, the immune system that is the people are perhaps not tested enough to react to their issues. Often the approach to the development of countries outside the western model and “…striving for an ideal perfection rendered the place lifeless…”22 involves “… imposing the stigma of beneficiary…”23 just as a doctor brands their patient as ‘sick’-. “… the poor are assumed to be ‘underdeveloped’ and – momentarily at least – deprived of their capacity to define their own interests. It is up to those in a superior position of knowledge and power (…) to assist them on their behalf ” 24. This immediately begins cultivating a relationship of dependency and compliance, reinforced even further by depicting those who provide aid as ‘donors’. As the donor-patient relationship grows, so does the dependency on the drugs that is remedial aid and prescriptive development. Prescription in medicine focuses primarily on neutralising a specific threat to the body, though often disparate from the body in which it is intended to help, rather than encouraging the immune system or empowering the body. Similarly the prescriptive approach to development often disregards the inherent relationship between people and architecture, in an attempt to focus on alleviating existing problems, contributing little to empowering or encouraging the development of a community, instead cultivating further dependency on prescriptions and relief aid. Through nullifying the need for the immune system, the responsive nature of the immune system is undermined, cauterising the body and suppressing its responsive nature. Where in medicine the body becomes dependent on the medicines, relying on a regular stream of prescriptive drugs and devaluing the body, a prescriptive architecture breeds dependency 20 Sachs, Wolfgang, The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power, (London: Zed Books, 1991). 21 Esteva, Gustavo, ‘Development’, in The Development Dictionary, ed. by Wolfgang Sachs, (London: Zed Books, 1992), pp. 6-25. 22 Hamdi, The Placemaker’s Guide…, p. 25. 23 Hamdi, The Placemaker’s Guide…, p. 29. 24 Rahnems, Majid, ‘Poverty’, in The Development Dictionary, ed. by Wolfgang Sachs, (London: Zed Books, 1992), pp. 158-176. 7

on expatriate help. People lose value in their own abilities to develop their own solutions, and cultivates a gross dependency relationship. The prescriptive architectural response to development stifles the immune system that is the community, creating an environment that is devoid of the value for the potential of the immune system that is the people. This gross homogenisation disregards the multifaceted potential that comes with the responsive nature of people. The western hegemonic power structure regards themselves “… as a doctor, and the alien culture as a kind of disease to be cured.”25, often at the expense of the cultural identity. Antibiotics, though immediately alleviating to the body, gradually kill off the immune system, thus weakening the body’s ability to respond to future threats. Over time, this risks developing superbugs that are immune to our prescriptions. In architecture these embodies itself as breeding continually degenerating social conditions, “…robbing peoples of different cultures of the opportunity to define the forms of their social life…”26 and instilling a society of compliance. Hamdi aptly illustrates the prescriptive nature of architecture and planning contrasting with a ‘bottom-up approach’. He describes the conventional planning process for social housing and the built environment as “…instant, [and] prescriptive”27. The symptoms of development become an obsessive drive, “bordering on a sickness” in which they (the providers) continually need to offer help and thus require recurring contact with the donors to elevate their lives in some way. This could be seen as an almost blood donor / recipient relationship with the transfusion becoming perpetual and bordering on leech-like. ‘Helping becomes a drug… We need to protect others and ourselves from the consequences of good intentions… when good intentions are tangled with feelings of moral superiority, it can be twice as dangerous… ’28. This should not be confused with encouraging the world to adopt an apathetic view of ‘developing’ countries, rather to reconsider the relationship and repercussions of the interventions that the providers actually encourage. The greater danger arises when Architecture, in particular development in ‘third world’ countries becomes like prescription without consideration. In the literal sense, Aid for Africa often becomes about pills rather than prevention, prescribing architectural drugs for the contagious disease known as poverty. In existing ‘behind’ the western hegemonic power structure, the world subconsciously labels the subaltern under the ‘sick role’29 and thus providers such as charities “…feel pressurized to prescribe antibiotics to undeserving patients with the

25 Braudel, Fernand, Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800, (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), p. 72 26 Esteva, Gustavo, ‘Development’, in The Development Dictionary, ed. by Wolfgang Sachs, (London: Zed Books, 1992), pp. 6-25. 27 Hamdi, The Placemaker’s Guide…, p. 120. 28 Brandon, David, Zen in the Art of Helping, (New York: Routledge, 1976), p. 55. 29 Parsons, ‘The Sick Role…’, p. 257. PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE: Tom Paddock

fear of letting them down and having nothing done for them”30. This eventually becomes a perpetually repetitive process, with similar properties to prescribing solutions – almost like a drug that can stimulate in small doses but becomes fatally addictive in larger doses. Slum Rehabilitation Authority social housing projects are among the greatest proponents of ‘prescriptive architecture’. Often diagnosing the slum communities as sick social environments for which a heavy dose of westernised living is necessary to achieve a ‘civilised’ solution. This is not to say that antibiotics and other medicinal pills have no place in our society, rather highlighting the overdependence on such medicinal methods, and when applying the medicinal metaphor to architecture, stressing the serious side effects of dependence on interventions. The over-prescription of a western model on third world nation will eventually impose a (notion) of compliance, leading to worsening social conditions and the possibility of a social ‘superbug’31 in the form of complete dependence and a society of compliance.

The Architect-Surgeon: A Clinical Stance to Contingency The metaphor of illness, with particular stress on cancer, is so deeply rooted in society that it is often used to describe many negative aspects of our city. For those that suffer with cancer, the use of this metaphor has the implications of branding them as an untouchable, and for the public the most aggressive treatment seems the only way of alleviating such conditions. Indeed in the worst cases of social disparity that borders on cancerous; undoubtedly, a prescriptive response to place making is not the solution, thus a prescriptive response to architecture and the built environment will not create a cure. Instead, a more radical approach is required, such as “obliterating the slums” in the search for the “City Beautiful”32. This gives birth to a sterile, clinical architecture: the Architect as a Surgeon. Whereas the prescriptive solution to architecture works disparate from the immune system that is the community, the surgeon-architect is intrusive and reduces the value of the patient such that it is assumed that the body cannot respond to its problems. Here, the surgeon architect intervenes, their ‘…knife sink[ing] into the very organs and tissue that makes up the ailing body’33 in an attempt to surgically remove that which is deemed undesirable by the 30 Nanyonjo, Agnes, ‘Established Traditional Medicine’, International Health Policies, http://e.itg.be/ihp/archives/ established-traditional-medicine-learn-china-reduce-excessive-antibiotic-prescription-low-income-countries/ [accessed 05 December 2012]. 31 Yarwood, Trent, ‘We can beat superbugs with better stewardship of antibiotics’, The Conversation, http:// theconversation.edu.au/we-can-beat-superbugs-with-better-stewardship-of-antibiotics-9492 [accessed 02 February 2013]. 32 Pierce, N.R & Johnson, C.W, ‘Designing the Inclusive City’ in Century of the City: No Time to Lose, (New York: The Rockefeller Foundation, 2008). 33 Pai, Hyungmin, The Portfolio and the Diagram: Architecture Discourse, and Modernity in America, (London: MIT Press, 2002), p. 279. 9

surgeon/society. The surgical response to architecture focuses primarily on surgically removing the problem in order to start anew as opposed to attempting to develop or encourage a solution. The process assumes the body does not have the ability to respond internally and is being overwhelmed and as such can be likened to a surgical stance in some architecture in particular the response to slums being that of clearance and removal, viewing the slums as the issue as opposed to attempting to develop the community, “…disvaluing all other forms of social existence…”34. It is this disvalue that breeds ‘…autonomy into dependency”35. The architect-surgeon’s mega scalpel contorts Architecture into an instrument that penetrates deep into the polis, “…dig[ging] her entrails or mutilat[ing] her body”36resorting to radical measures in order to surgically remove the diagnosed sickness within the organism of society/the polis. An extremely disturbing issue arises when one considers “…how deep into culture and personality this homogenisation [has] to penetrate”37. Thus when Le Corbusier considers social order in the polis in Précisions, it is inevitable that the metaphor he adopts is that of the polis as a sick organism. And unsurprisingly the disease that Le Corbusier insists is inflicted upon the city, architecture and academy is cancer. If the ‘city has a biological life’38 diagnosed by the Architects and Urban Planners, he argues that order can only be achieved through ‘radical surgery’39, the prescriptive measures likened to drugs or medicine are too feeble: ‘in city planning “medical” solutions are a delusion; they resolve nothing, they are very expensive. Surgical solutions resolve.’40 Corbusier’s analogy is revealing of the perception of the stigma of sickness and how it must be eliminated, ‘…the cancerous elements cut out, if a fresh start is to be made’41. This is indicative of the perception of the ‘illness’ of social difference, and how these cancerous aspects must be surgically removed in order to resume the path towards westernised ‘normality’. An example of this surgical stance in urban development and architecture is the Pruitt-Igoe urban housing project. Although originally planned to be two and three story residential blocks with a public park, this was disregarded in favour of clearing the slums and replac34 Illich, Ivan, ‘El desvalor y la creacion social del deschecho’, Tecno-politica, Doc. 87-03. 35 Esteva, Gustavo, Development, in The Development Dictionary, p. 18. 36 Merchant, Carolyn, The Death of Nature, Women Economy and the Scientific Revolution, (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), p. 182. 37 Lummis, C. Douglas, Equality, in The development dictionary, p. 45. 38 Le Corbusier, When the Cathedral Walls Were White: A Journey to the Country of Timid People, (London: Routeldge, 1947), p. 50. 39 Pinder, David, Visions of the City: Utopianism, Power and Politics in 20th-Century Urbanism, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005). 40 Le Corbusier, Précisions: on the present state of architecture and city planning, (London: MIT Press, 1991), p. 174. 41 Till, Jeremy, ‘Architecture and Contingency’, field: a free journal for architecture, http://www.field-journal.org/ uploads/file/2007_Volume_1/j%20till.pdf [accessed 02 December 2012]. PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE: Tom Paddock

The Surgical Stance to Urban regeneration: by author

ing them with high-rise, high-density public housing. This highlights the approach to ‘urban regeneration’ that insists that a clean slate is required in order to heal the city’s illnesses. An article entitled “Slum Surgery in St. Louis” highlights the surgical stance adopted by urban planners and perhaps even more telling is the comments within it: ‘We must rebuild, open up and clean up the hearts of our cities. The fact that slums were created with all the intrinsic evils was everybody’s fault. Now it is everybody’s responsibility to repair the damage.’42 The metaphor of the cancer echoes in the view that is perceived as social disorder – the only solution apparent is the surgical removal of such a malicious element “…cut[ting] into the plenitudinous notion of Culture”43. While Le Corbusier champions the Architectural Surgeon as the most logical, solution to the blights on the polis otherwise known as poverty, it has become apparent that such radical actions are neither economically viable nor socially efficient responses, as they “… erase and interrogate those ethnocentric forms of cultural modernity that ‘contemporise’ cultural difference…”44. It can be seen that in some cases the notion of the ‘Architect as Surgeon’ can be reinvented in such a way that keeps the aspects of change and urban revival while not completely demolishing the existing built environment – giving rise to the Architectural Plastic Surgeon. While the name beckons negative connotations associated with appearances and aesthetics, the notion of ‘operating’ on a building to change how it performs or is experienced has proven to be an apt solution to some situations in need of regeneration. Standing as an alternative to Le Corbusier’s radical surgical solution, Stefan Forster proposes a response to urban regeneration that transcends the ‘architectural facelift’45 to embody the architect as plastic surgeon. He diagnoses symptoms of the buildings and treats the building as a living organism, slicing floors, splicing walls, grafting additions on and stitching spaces together. This approach allows radical changes in spaces, transforming apartments into villas while still not requiring vast doses of demolition. The resulting architecture however, though meeting today’s standards of living, bears some semblance to prescriptive architecture as it is essentially “handed over on completion”46, an example of which is the social housing: block 5 in which the building was designed in a ‘pre-op’, ‘post-op’ method of slicing up the existing structure – a potential alternative to the destructive, radical methods of the architectural surgeon. The approach of the architect as surgeon extends to the degree that some architects aim to operate on the very fabric of architecture and surgically remove the notion of contingency. Through the denial of contingency, the place loses any possibilities of becoming responsive 42 Ramroth, William G. Jr., Planning for Disaster: How Natural and Man-Made Disasters Shape the Built Environment, (USA: Kaplan Publishing, 2007), p. 164. 43 Bhabha, Komi H., The Location of Culture, (New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 352. 44 Bhabha, Komi, H., The Location of Culture, (London: Routledge, 1994), p.344. 45 Hernberg, Hella, ‘Architectural Surgery’, Urban Dream Management, http://www.urbandreammanagement. com/2011/04/architectural-surgery/ [accessed 26 January 2013]. 46 Hamdi, Nabeel, The Placemaker’s Guide to Building Community, (London: Earthscan, 2010), p. 23. PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE: Tom Paddock

to its inhabitants. This is partly due to the underlying fear that the architectural discipline has of losing control, but results in an architecture which has disconnected, cauterizing a vital organ of the place – the inhabitants and thus transforming “…contingency from the language of domination into that of emancipation”47. This creates a social tension and a loss of identity, with the knowledge that the surgeon architect “…[takes] flesh and came into [their] world…”48 with the supposed intervention seen more as “ an invasion”49 The surgical stance in architecture can be compared to that of laparoscopic surgery (or keyhole surgery) – a somewhat radical response to removing a problem with an intense focus on leaving as little scar tissue as possible to achieve “…a much better cosmetic result”50. This highlights the incredibly superficial nature of keyhole surgery, focusing on how the body is viewed externally as opposed to how it functions internally. In Architecture, a superficial surgical approach such as this values the forms of the built environment and their perception far more than the people within it, as they are almost ‘out of sight out of mind’. Interestingly, such ‘minimally invasive’ surgical techniques require surgeons to use tools to interact with tissue “…rather than manipulate it directly with their hands”51. This is perhaps analogous with the Architect-surgeon’s tendency to use tools such as design and mapping software as opposed to collaborating with the body they are working within. Architectural radical Surgery is extensive surgery imbued by “…the West’s contempt …”52 for the subaltern, aimed at eliminating this social disease by completely removing the affected tissue and the surrounded area. It could be described as a last resort measure when the body cannot respond to its own threats and is being overwhelmed. This can be related to the radical approach to slum ‘development’, which involves vast demolition of existing community self-built structures in order to ‘start again’. The scalpel of the architect surgeon slices through the landscape, in an almost urbanicidal fashion, in order to graft on the western standard of living and “coerc[ing the subaltern] into a negative, generic subject position”53. A branch of surgery, gastric bypass can be viewed as an obscene way to make obese people ‘acceptable’ to society. This ignores the possibility of changing what is acceptable in society, diagnosing the problem to be with the person as opposed to the society which they are in. The architectural gastric bypass is also focused on neutralising the problem at merely the microscale, disregarding the possibility of expanding a solution to the macroscale – 47 Natoli, Joseph p., A Postmodern Reader, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), p. 12. 48 Morrison, T., Beloved, (London: Pluto, 1985), p.343. 49 Morrison, Beloved, p.343. 50 Harvery, Michael, ‘Keyhole Surgery’, keyholesurgery.net, http://keyholesurgery.net/page2/keyholesurgery. html [accessed 20 February 2013]. 51 Unknown, ‘Laparoscopic Surgery’, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laparoscopic_surgery [accessed 16 January 2013]. 52 Said, Edward, Orientalism, (London: Routledge, 1978), p.59. 53 Janmohamed, A. & Lloyd, D., ed., The Nature and Context of Minority Discourse, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 8. 13

imposing the ‘civilised’ model of living as opposed to attempting to change what is perceived as ‘dignified’ and ‘acceptable’ living conditions. The notion of starting anew extends so far that neurosurgeons have resorted to desperate measures to tackling the issue of addiction, in particular the dependence on drugs. The procedures involve destroying the ‘pleasure centres’ of the brain, in an extremely risky attempt to reduce cravings for such substances. With such a controversial procedure, it can be argued that the surgeon is eliminating aspects within ourselves, with the potential side effect of removing “…the entire spectrum of natural longings and emotions, including the ability to feel joy”54. Arguably there is the risk of destroying what makes us human. In architecture and development, this can be likened to the clinical pursuit of a universal condition, dulling the pleasure centres of the polis that is multiplicity and diversity, resulting in the potential “… fragment[ing] and schizophrenic decentring…”55 of the subaltern. Another aspect that is sometimes considered, but often neglected, is the psychological approach to architecture. By this I refer not to the psychological impact that the building has on the person, rather the impact of the psychology of society as a collective upon the built environment and the psyche of the Architect themselves. Psychologists must first go through a thorough process of self analysis, the idea being that in order to be ‘qualified’ to analyse another’s mind, one must first be in sound mind themselves “Physician, Heal Thyself”56. The same concept could be applied to Architects, in that they need to question whether they would live in the buildings they design, or whether they can relate to those that will eventually inhabit the spaces. Architecture as a discipline has a dangerous tendency to overlook the value of people, often focusing instead on the structure as the one and only solution to any problems in the immediate area. Social empowerment can act as a “…catalyst to [empower]…”57 the inhabitants or those experiencing the space, even utilised as a powerful tool to act against aspects of the environment such as crime. Jane Jacobs celebrates to power of the social web that runs beneath microcosmic urban life. In The Death and Life… she highlights the vast potential of the “eye on the street”58 ideal that urban planners can use to build healthier streets that by design function to support each other, essentially nourishing a community to grow and heal any blight that pre-exist. 54 Szalavitz, Maia, ‘Pleasure Centre’, Time, http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/13/controversial-surgery-foraddiction-burns-away-brains-pleasure-center/ [accessed 01 February 2013]. 55 Jameson, Frederic, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1992), p. 399. 56 Proverb in Luke 4:23. 57 Hamdi, Nabeel, Small Change, (London: Earthscan, 2004), p. 15. 58 Jacobs, Jane, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, (New York: Random House Inc., 1961), p.35. PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE: Tom Paddock

Her narration of the ‘sidewalk ballet’59, the set-piece of the second chapter, tells an intriguing story of the baker, the bartender, the butcher and other stalwarts of High Street shops who keep an eye on the street and subtly, without direction from external authorities, exert communal control over the erratic stream of friends and strangers. Jacobs proposes that space, first and foremost, is pre-eminently a social space, and ignorance of the reliance and multiplicity the city has to offer, we reject all the qualities that give it life, safety and keep it healthy. This results in a society in which “…the destitute and materially deprived generally perceive their [condition] in negative terms”60, thus breeding social tension and disparity.

The Urban Acupuncturist: A Holistic Architecture “What is to be done in a world where even when you were a solution you were a problem”61 In the third world, “… illness and ageing are not considered natural curses… which must be treated in isolation, shame and guilt”, but are perceived as “…sources of personal and social enrichment”62. This perception of the urban poor is integral to the holistic approach to developing nations, which encourages the community to discover how mutually supportive they can be for one another. Now that the issue of how the imposition of western concepts on the other leads to a homogenised future, denying the trajectories of the subaltern or the other, to deny the world the possibility of multiple trajectories is a travesty that will result in the gentrification of society, cauterising the multicultural potential for the world. I propose we must now work towards an Architecture that “…understand[s] space as the sphere of possibility of the existence of multiplicity in the sense of contemporaneous plurality; as the sphere in which distant trajectories coexist”63. There is a need to recognise the subaltern not as cultures “…at an earlier stage in the one and only narrative it is possible to tell”64, but as coeval others. Need to imagine them as having “their own trajectories, their own particular histories, and the potential for their own, possibly different futures”65. Spatial Agencies are born from this notion – they are about creating often-miniscule ripples in the world that enable people to become their own solution. This bottom up approach inspires a world of sustainability from ‘social catalysts’. I propose that the Architect’s role in this approach becomes that of an ‘Urban Acupuncturist’ – whose job 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

Jacobs, The Death and Life…, p.50. Rahnema, Majid, Poverty, in The Development Dictionary, p.160. Morrison, Toni, Beloved, (London,: Vintage, 2005), p. 302. Latouche, Serge, Standard of Living, in The Development Dictionary, p. 260-261 Massey, Doreen, For Space, (London: SAGE Publications, 2005), p. 9. Massey, Doreen, For Space, (London: SAGE Publications, 2005), p. 5. Massey, Doreen, For Space, (London: SAGE Publications, 2005), p. 5. 15

The Urban Acupuncturist: by author

PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE: Tom Paddock

it is to encourage the ‘organism’ of the community (and at a grander scale the city) to heal the itself through the course of nature rather than relying on quick, prescriptive solutions that are ultimately not sustainable. The idea of urban acupuncture revolves around local resources rather than dependencybreeding municipal ‘solutions’, promoting the individuality of citizens and thriving from the sustainable aspect derived from people installing and maintaining their own interventions. Proponents of urban acupuncture claim that it creates a stronger sense of community and “…cultivates ownership and, with it, a sense of belonging and responsibility”66. The approach to architecture defined as ‘urban acupuncture’ is similar to acupuncture in that it stands in opposition to the western prescriptive mode of medicine, instead focusing on a holistic, subtle, bottom-up interventions that “harness and direct community energy in positive ways to heal urban blight and improve the cityscape”67. The benefits in turn transition through a variety of scales, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Still adhering to the approach of the polis as an organism to be diagnosed, the process of urban acupuncture ‘…identif[ies] not only symptoms of problems, but secondary and primary causes as well.’68 Through recognising the roots of the problems at a micro-scale, and targeting key energy points with the interventions, the aim would be to instigate ‘… a catalyst, or a series of catalysts, with immediate, practical impact…’ and the potential to generate a self sustaining urban healing process. Finding value in the power of the immune system and recognising the fact that the body has adapted to be resilient and responsive to its own problems. When applying this metaphor to architecture and the built environment, it can be extremely powerful in utilising the people as a catalyst to enable an adaptive development, epitomising a sustainable society. Acupuncture in medicine thrives on the notion that through minute interventions, the body is encouraged to channel its own energy in order to create its own solution, often a lengthier process than the western approach of prescribing drugs, but in theory focus on encouraging a stronger immune system in order to respond to inevitable future problems with less need for interventions. This is analogous to grass root or ‘bottom up’69 architecture, in that the focus is on empowering the people of the community to respond to any existing issues and develop a solution with minimal help, ultimately encouraging responsiveness to future issues. Urban acupuncture is not trying to change the world with a single dramatic idea, rather it stresses that architecture is also about small tangible things. 66 Hamdi, Nabeel, The Placemaker’s Guide to Building Community, (London: Earthscan, 2010), p. xvi. 67 http://thisoldstreet.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/londons-urban-acupuncture-the-urban-physic-garden/ [accessed 10/11/12]. 68 Hamdi, Nabeel, The Placemaker’s Guide to Building Community, (London: Earthscan, 2010), p.65. 69 Leon, Ana Maria, ‘Eme3 2012: Bottom Up’, domus, http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/eme3-2012bottom-up-/ [accessed 15 December 2012]. 17

Holistic medicine claims that disease is a result of physical, emotional or spiritual imbalance, and while it is debatable on the validity of this claim, architecture can benefit greatly from considering the holistic approach and value it places on people. Whereas in the modern western medicinal approach focuses greatly on inserting alien solutions into the body, the holistic approach aims to empower the body to find its own solutions, through as little intervention as possible. The holistic architect “…sees cities not as problems, but as solutions. It can be argued that any city, willingly, can be transformed for better…provided that developers embrace a more generous (read holistic) approach to them.”70 Nabeel Hamdi is a spatial practitioner who, through the process of participatory planning, involves the community in the design process in order to create miniscule interventions that create a ‘ripple effect’ that he describes as the “…natural and organic process of emergence”71. An example of this is ‘The Buffalo Project’ that Hamdi discovers on his travels – in which a group of families are gifted a buffalo each to care for. Seemingly isolated from encouraging emergence, this in turn provokes the community to create resources from the buffaloes, utilising everything from the milk (a better source of milk than cows with twice the amount of butter fat) as a source of milk and cheese to the dung as sources of fuel and sundried and burnt to smoulder in the evening to keep away mosquitoes. Interestingly, Hamdi continues to question how much intervention is needed before urban intervention becomes an urban inhibitor, stating “how much structure will be needed before the structure itself inhibits personal freedoms, gets in the way of people and process?”72 It can thus be argued that in development, that western approach to its peripheries, particularly in architecture, has a ‘2-sided’ moral obligation – if we didn’t intervene in crises, one can assume we would be endangering people’s lives. However the very process of intervention, encourages a world of dependency – “…an architecture of compliance”73 – possibly leading to the formation of a homogenous world. Hamdi proposes that in responding to spatial planning and architecture in the ‘third world’ we need to make the shift from being providers to enablers. Since the western world is endowed with a position of hierarchy, we will always need to be providers, but one must recognise that we cannot provide in its own right – rather we must provide to enable. If providing is discrete in its own right, interventions and relief aid become prescriptive (hearkening back to the medicine vs. natural remedy analogy) and top down, or it becomes charity – neither of which is sustainable as a development initiative, and eventually instil “…reliance upon a

70 Lerner, Jaimie, ‘Urban Acupuncture’, Harvard Business Review, http://blogs.hbr.org/revitalizing-cities/2011/04/ urban-acupuncture.html [accessed 03 Ferbruary 2013]. 71 Hamdi, Nabeel, The Placemaker’s Guide to Building Community, (London: Earthscan, 2010), p. xvii. 72 Hamdi, Nabeel, The Placemaker’s Guide to Building Community, (London: Earthscan, 2010), p. xvii. 73 Hamdi, Nabeel, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjrIVjSK6oA [accessed 04/11/12]. PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE: Tom Paddock

professional elite and [a] dependence on aid”74. As such, we should not let our base instincts of charity control our actions (not ignoring compassion completely of course) in favour for a more sceptical mind to engage with an Architecture that enables emergence. Examples of the holistic approach to architecture include the small scale interventions of spatial agencies, who places so much value on the immune system that is the people they design for that they are often included in the design process. Hamdi champions the magnitude of the potential that participatory practise can offer us and takes the participatory process one step further by involving the people of the community in the planning and development process. Unique ways of collating information from the public include ‘conflict trees’ in which the diagramming and mapping is given to the public to allow them to express issues that are personal to themselves. Whereas some argue that participation is ‘professionally threatening’75, Hamdi counters this stating that ‘… it empowers outsiders’76. The ingenious notion of including the public for which the intervention will aspire to ‘cure’ or enable the process of healing, brings to mind the idea of almost self-diagnosis, allowing insight into the lives of those affected that would otherwise remain unknown. Other examples of urban acupuncture in action, arguably at a slightly larger scale, is the elemental housing project by Alejandro Aravena. At first, it would appear that the prescriptive approach has become focal – with an undertone of westernized living standards in the form – but on further investigation, it is apparent that the project itself thrives on the contingency and development of its inhabitants. Designed under the concept of ‘half of a good house instead of a small one’77, the design of the half built being such that it enables the families within it to ‘finish’ or adapt to their needs. Through maximising the potential of self-build as customization, the house does not depreciate in value as many social housing developments do, rather the housing is considered as an investment, both for the developers and more importantly, the inhabitants. The ‘incremental housing’ housing approach is a fascinating model that can be applied both to ‘developing nations’ and could even teach lessons of self-healing to the western model. While it would appear that the urban acupuncture approach to urban planning lends itself mainly to developing nations, there have been examples in which cities have already benefitted greatly. Jaime Lerner, former Mayor of Curitiba, achieved a great deal during his terms as mayor, including promoting the untapped potential of urban acupuncture. Lerner ‘…believe[d] that some medicinal “magic” can and should be applied to cities, as many are sick and some nearly terminal. As with the medicine needed in the interaction between doctor and patient, in urban planning it is also necessary to make the city react; to poke an area 74 Hamdi, Nabeel, Small Change, (London: Earthscan, 2004), p. xi. 75 Hamdi, Nabeel, The Placemaker’s Guide to Building Community, (London: Earthscan, 2010), p. 98. 76 Hamdi, Nabeel, The Placemaker’s Guide to Building Community, (London: Earthscan, 2010), p. 99. 77 Aravena, Alejandro, ‘From Utopia to Youtopia’, in Living in the Endless City, ed. by Ricky Burdett & Deyan Sudjic (London: Phaidon, 2011), pp. 368-373. 19

in such a way that it is able to help heal, improve, and create positive chain reactions.’78 Examples of specific interventions he targeted include the innovative bus shelters leading to the improved transport system. Lerner identified the transport as an integral point to target and as such over time the city began to ‘heal itself’, with the citizens gaining newfound pride within their city and reducing circulation from critical conditions to return the polis of Curitiba to a healthy state. Slum developments are prime examples where urban acupuncture and a holistic approach can and has benefitted the community. The living conditions and culture are so vastly different to the western model that to impose prescriptive architecture on the community would lose the potential for a diverse environment. Slum settlements are truly a phenomenon in

themselves, they “… [epitomize] the resilience and the endurance of…”79 society, instilling that “…every problem has within itself the seeds of a possible solution”80. Every slum dwelling is person’s unique solution for their own personal needs, optimising space, resources and money. The adapting nature encourages vibrant communities of people to bloom out of the necessity to collaborate and generate spiritual strength to survive and struggle. Whereas the western prescriptive model has bred solutions diagnosed from the viewpoint of the Architect, slum developments empower the people as their own solutions. Slum developments are also not static – continually evolving and adapting to meet the needs for the people. Prescriptive architecture is inert, denying the contingent nature of development and alienating the people from their environment. A fascinating example of slum development is Dharavi, “…pulsat[ing] with intense economic activity. Its population has achieved a unique informal “self-help” urban development… without any external aid... [and] lift themselves out of poverty”81. In many ways, Dharavi has evolved beyond a residential slum, into a unique self-contained township interwoven with a close workplace relationship that Geddes eulogised. Another prime example of urban acupuncture in ‘developing nations’ is the Aranya Community housing by Vastu-Shilpa Foundation, Balkrishna V. Doshi82. Rather than completely demolishing the area in order to prescribe the western standard of living, development is approached with the existing community at its heart, designing building that empower the existing social strength of the area – improving the living conditions of the area while also 78 Lerner , Jaimie, Kyle Miller MSIS, http://kylemillermsis.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/urban-acupuncturerevivifying-our-cities-through-targeted-renewal/ [accessed 22 January 2013]. 79 Unknown, ‘Junglist City’, Airoots, http://www.airoots.org/2008/05/junglist-city/ [accessed 06 January 2013]. 80 Peale, Norman Vincent, Discovering The Power of Positive Thinking, (New York: Ishi Press International, 1952). 81 Apte, Prakash M., ‘Dharavi: Inidia’s Model Slum’, Planetizen, http://www.planetizen.com/node/35269 [accessed 07 Januray 2013]. 82 Davidson, Cynthia C., ‘Aranya Community Housing’ in Architecture Beyond Architecture, (London: Academy Editions, 1995), pp. 64-71. PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE: Tom Paddock

maintaining the cultural identity of the inhabitants. This holistic approach is not claiming that the world should live in poverty â&#x20AC;&#x201C; neither should this argument imply that the world should abandon those in need to fend for themselves in their times of need. It is merely to highlight the need to value the resilience and worth of people and to recognise them as the potential to be their own solutions.

Conclusion The conclusions from this research are thus far two-fold. Unless the issue of the Eurocentric prescriptive mode of architecture is recognised as that of breeding dependency, the march toward cultural homogeneity will go unchecked. I have found that there is a lot of value in the consideration of a medicinal approach, especially when considering the current stance on interventions in ‘developing nations’ – indeed a healthy urban organism is neither prescribed nor monocultural. I have found that among others, an intriguing alternative to this is the Urban Acupuncturist’s approach, in which it pinpoints specific interventions on the micro-scale that serve to encourage emergence through a ‘ripple effect’ and enable the people themselves to become their own solution - an ultimately more sustainable response to the top-down architecture championed today. This approach undoubtedly has weight in assigning value to the life force that keeps our spatial environment healthy – people. “…a city plan made up of small, networked interventions, reflecting the multiplicity of visions and aspirations on the ground rather than some single ideal imposed from above, or worse, from outside”83

83 Hamdi, The Placemaker’s Guide…, p. 106. PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE: Tom Paddock

Championing the holistic approach to empowerment: by author

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